Which is the strongest empire right now?

You forget to mention tho that 2 of the servers have been won by VS vs. NC in the last couple of hours while it have been rock solid wins on all other servers. Those could have been NC wins too(especially given that NC outnumbers VS easily on Cobalt). So it's more like
NC 3(5)
TR 2
VS 3(1)

and that pretty much equals the pop-numbers and the strength of equipment.

What we need to do is get all the empires together to lift rocks and throw cannon balls.

Anyway, just posting in charmless "please buff vs moar" thread #32234234.

Yeah that is exactly what I am saying, whenever it is mentioned that the SAW feels OP, the response is as I stated earlier: "It is difficult to use, it has a high skill-ceiling". But if you actually try the weapon, I mean, it really doesn't have vertical recoil or a widening cone of fire that is any more unmanageable than the LMG's in the VS arsenal, particularly the SVA-88 and Ursa with High Velocity Ammo, which I feel it needs SOLELY to increase the damage output to COMPETE with those I face using the Gauss SAW, AND EVEN THEN IT IS STILL 167 DAMAGE, ONLY THE DAMAGE DISTANCE DROP OFF IS EXTENDED, AND IT HAS A LOWER RATE OF FIRE.

I am not kidding, I am losing to brand new players who have joined the NC, not once in a while here and there BUT CONSISTENTLY. Typical scenario: two players round hill or round corner and identify each other as an opponent, both activate their heavy shield around the same time, both begin to ADS at around the same time give or take a few milliseconds, both begin firing at around the same time, both are exhibiting proper aim, accounting for the first-shot-multiplier that kicks the aim up from the upper torso to the head, GAUSS SAW WILL WIN EVERY TIME NO EXCEPTION. I mean, really though, BR 83, my heavy resist shield is certed out, advanced shield capacitor certed out, health-kits, munitions pouch, weapon itself, everything certed out, Underboss secondary, IT DOESN'T MATTER, I CONSISTENTLY LOSE TO GAUSS SAW, ANYWHERE FROM 0 TO 50 METERS I LOSE NEARLY EVERY TIME IF ALL OF THE ABOVE IS RELATIVELY EQUAL.

Now the only way to overcome the inherent, underlying weapon imbalance is if I get the drop on somebody, but even then, like say I come from the side, someone is shooting elsewhere etc, and I begin ADS firing on them with my heavy shield on for, and I am not exaggerating, 2-3 seconds. Sometimes they will turn to me AND STILL DROP ME WITH A GAUSS SAW. Or, even if I drop them, my health will be completely depleted, and I am talking like under 30%, which means I am forced to forgo running around with C-4 in case I encounter stray armor, I have to have health-kits equipped instead.

Come on SOE, the imbalance sucks. I truly feel that the VS could use a minor arsenal wide damage buff OR actually reduce the vertical recoil and widening cone of fire spread as SUPPOSEDLY our traits are accuracy at greater distance. I also feel that the Magrider could have the vertical axis limit of the Saron secondary removed or restored to its former self AND reduce some of the exaggerated projectile drop of the main cannon. Here is what happened last night and any and every night for that matter. I am on a tower as an Anti-armor Max, strafing and using dual Vortex, I get away with this for maybe 1 minute tops as I am dropped by a Vanguard main cannon. This is the usual outcome 100% of the time. Now lets reverse this scenario, NC Max on Tower landing-pad with dual Falcons or Ravens, strafing away, I SELDOM LAND A SHOT FROM THE MAGRIDER MAIN CANNON BECAUSE OF THE EXAGGERATED PROJECTILE DROP. For all of the NC reading this who have no idea, PLEASE, go into VS VR and see for yourself, try to engage targets beyond 200 meters, it is like trying to use a BASR beyond 200 meters, you will have to fire shot after shot to calculate the ballistics. So if youre shooting at an NC Max in the aforementioned scenario, unless they are brain-dead or preoccupied, 9 times of 10 they remove themselves from your line of sight. Whereas if youre in a Vanguard, soon as a VS Max is still for a moment you fire once and its a kill with NEXT TO ZERO PROJECTILE DROP.

Same applies for warding off anti-armor ESF's, if youre in a Magrider, experienced ESF pilots KNOW youre virtually defenseless, they know they can hover above say 45 degrees about the horizon and your Saron CANT EVEN REACH THEM. They know that you will probably miss with your main cannon because of the exaggerated projectile drop. So they will rain down Seigebreaker and Hellfire rockets with virtual impunity. But if we reverse this, say youre in a Scythe hovering directly in front of either a Vanguard or a Prowler (hopefully not in Lockdown or youre really toast) and youre blown out of the sky because there is next to zero projectile drop with their main cannon. I REGULARLY GET BLOWN OUT OF THE SKY BY VANGUARD AND PROWLER MAIN CANNON AND I AM NOT EVEN HOVERING LIKE MOSQUITO'S AND REAVER'S CAN. I am talking I am getting nailed by these main cannon WHILE MOVING. Go ahead, try and do this with a Magrider, you wont be able to. Sure you might get a lucky shot in here and there but that will be extremely infrequent.

So the NC and TR have an advantage in that they can deprive their enemy from using air, solely with their main cannon. The VS are not afforded this luxury. This is why I truly feel that the Magrider needs its main cannon projectile drop REDUCED, not completely eliminated as I understand that is the trade-off for being able to slowly strafe at 20 KPH, which again, as stated in my post above, affords no advantage under 100-150 meters.

I haven't even mentioned how the VS have the LAMEST, most ineffectual faction specific missile launcher, especially as compared to the Phoenix, which is very useful (and fun). Lancer DOES NOT hold a candle to Phoenix. I am not calling for a nerf to the Phoenix, but the Lancer could certainly use a decrease in charge time and slight damage buff, say one fully charged shot is about where one fully charged shot of dual Vortex is damage wise. Right now it is worthless IMO. Yes great, in a squad of Lancer's it is viable, but I seldom see coordinated Lancer use so this really isn't an argument. Whereas with the Phoenix, a solo operator can do a bit of damage, hitting enemy armor and Sunderers etc. behind terrain, it is a very effective weapon.

I have heard that the majority of the development team favors the NC and TR, I've even heard that number wise, out of 20 or so developers, only 4 represent the VS, with the other 16 representing the other two factions. I wan't to say this isn't the case, but I truly feel the VS is underpowered and continues to suffer from overbearing nerfs such as that ZOE, Saron, and the Magrider in general have received. The VS arsenal continues to receive minor buffs I believe in recognition of this fact: the Eidolon Battle Rifle, the Ursa, the Lasher, the Vortex, the Eridani, the Sirius and many others. Although it is good to see the developers acknowledge the imbalance and attempt to address it, I feel that the buffs were inadequate, that the Lasher and dual Vortex in particular, and possibly many of the popular LMG's such as the Ursa could either use a damage buff OR reduce their vertical recoil, increase their rate of fire and reduce their widening cone of fire etc.

Here is the thing with WDS victories and the statistics in general. We have seen a HUGE, MASSIVE, surge of new players into the NC whereas the VS and TR have received only a handful of new recruits in comparison. What this means is that the NC, although numerically larger, now have many more inexperienced, low BR, and consequently poorly developed class characters ability wise yet the statistics STILL reflect the NC as having the highest KDR per weapon and vehicle class.

This isn't a minor detail. THE NC HAVE A LARGE NUMBER OF NEW, INEXPERIENCED, AND UNDEVELOPED PLAYERS USING UNDEVELOPED VEHICLES YET STILL LEAD IN NEARLY EVERY PARAMETER WEAPONS AND VEHICLE WISE.

Imagine how the stats would look if these new players were of a certain BR, had developed characters and vehicles and were extremely familiar with the nature of the game.

The NC would look OP in the extreme.

In fact, I make the argument that the NC is OP in the extreme, and that this is not reflected in the statistics as the NC is now largely populated with mostly inexperienced and undeveloped players.

Wait 3-4 months, SOE is going to be forced to address the weapon imbalance I mention above. Right now it is relatively ok, but once these players become experienced there will be no reason to participate in any alert if the population is relatively even as the NC will win by default, ESPECIALLY Bio-Lab Alerts. I imagine there will be alert boycotts as many of us are already thinking about doing. I'm not kidding, serious discussion is being had among the VS vet's about just not going to Bio-Lab alerts at all. Were talking entire outfits not participating. I mean, if that isn't indicative of the imbalance RIGHT NOW, with a sizable portion of the NC being new, inexperienced and using undeveloped character abilities, weapons and vehicles I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW IT WILL BE WHEN THEY ARE EXPERIENCED AND DEVELOPED.

It really is ridiculous though. As I stated above, I am finding that I am consistently losing to BR 05's and BR 10's, who can't possibly have developed character abilities. I'm not talking about here and there, I'm talking about most of the time.

Hello,

Please Vulcan78, stop spitting your venom on all NC faction without any idea of what your are saying. It's becoming embarassing for everyone.
At least it should be for you.

Peace/love.

Bye.

The really emberassing thing here is, that he is actually right.

The over all WDS scores are 35% NC 34% VS and 32% TR.

That not only mirrors the servers well but is pretty balanced in itself, given that in week 1 of WDS1 the scores were 40% TR 31% VS and 29% NC (and that the NC only won one server twice in the whole 6 weeks of WDS1, they never won another server! )

This time is VASTLY more balanced than last time.

Hello,

Please Clay, keep going, you are as interesting as your little friend vulcan78.
In case you could not read with your eyes closed, the WDS score is now more balanced than ever.
Farming party VS and TR side is now over. Get over or leave this game.
You'll not miss me at least.

Bye.

You're not accounting for the different scoring systems.

But I suppose ignoring factors that would nullify your argument wouldn't quite work out in your favour.

If you think the WDS score says anything about faction balance, I have no idea in what universe you live in. Nevermind.

You mark a point here.
But until we get a real goal in this game, this is the only tool we have at our disposal for large scale conflicts.

Theory is great and all but there is this little thing called empiricism and it tends not to care much about theory.

By the way, I have no idea who vulcan is and he writes alot of nonsense, but I can agree some points.
I have only my one-sided, meaningless opinion, but I feel like it is WAY harder to fight against NC then TR. These moments when you get shot from the distance by a BR10 with almost godlike accuracy and you go down in less than a second and just think "omg what was that".. these moments just dont happen as much when you engage TR. Maybe I am biased, but for me it feels like the NC tools are a little to powerful, and their downsides dont compensate that as well as the vanu weapon downsides (low magazine, low damage)

The one who has the most population in the server, as it always has been.

Vanus have no drop on their weapons....

Vanu has drop on every weapon where no drop would be useful

My opinion :
1.00 : VS
1.01 : NC
1.02 : TR

Everything is very balanced, I do think the VS has a bit better weapons for the situations. TR weapons I think are a bit 'meh' compared to what they used to be, but in no means under powered.

Actually it has no drop on battle rifle, so it's that I guess.

Scout Rifles too iirc (unless they changed that recently).

Yeah, but who in this game is using a scout rifle(unless you are an unlucky Vanu that actually start with that bad weapon)? It's not like sniper rifles that can't kill with one shot are of any use in this game(cause you will only get a chance to hit your target 2 or 3 times without of him recharging his shield if he is a total noob).

I have yet to see any HA battle rifle on any faction that has a bullet drop that would actually matter at realistic fighting distances. I mean, if you want to shoot someone at the horizon with the VS Orion you can do that without bullet drop...you just need him to stand still for 15 seconds so that you can shoot him with about 8 bursts(only the first bullet hits due to bloom and recoil and the size of the target.....and if he moves it's just luck cause he then is a very, very small moving pixel target)...and seriously...you can do that with all other battle rifles too cause the bullet drop isn't THAT huge.

I have yet to see a gun of VANU where the no bullet drop would give us a serious advantage like larger magazines or more damage of the other factions do. Either the comparable guns of the other factions have no bullet drop at fighting distance as well...or VANU got a similar high bullet drop as the others(in case of Magriders it is even worse. Likely the worst bullet drop aside from granade launchers.).